This World Series featured five former MVPs – and Juan Soto was not one of them, although he probably should have been. There was one year when Soto only finished fifth in the balloting, although he led the league in batting average, OBP and slugging percentage. It’s not good to play in Washington.
Of the six superstars, Freeman and Stanton were not the most likely to be the post-season heroes. Freeman is in his 15th season, and his production declined dramatically this year, exacerbated by a September ankle injury. Stanton may still be the strongest man in the game, but baseball games aren’t decided by dead-lifting. He’s in his 15th season and is coming off three disappointing, injury-ridden years.
Freddie Freeman was the well-deserved MVP.
Freeman homered in the first four games of the World Series in the process of setting a record with homers in six consecutive World Series games. The previous record of five was held by George Springer of the Astros. Springer broke the previous record of four, set by Lou Gehrig and tied by Reggie Jackson.
Freeman had 12 RBI in the World Series, tying the all-time record and easily eclipsing the team record of eight, which was jointly held by HOFers Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. He needed only five games to tie a record that took Bobby Richardson seven games to amass in 1960. (Well, technically six. It was a seven-game series, but he had no RBI in game seven, the famous Mazeroski game.)
Stanton’s achievement of seven homers is the post-season record for his own franchise. (Reggie hit five in the World Series that year, but none in the ALCS.) And that’s not just any franchise. It’s the greatest one, the one with Mantle, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Jackson, Jeter …
Stanton tied Mantle for second place on the Yankees’ lifetime list of post-season homer hitters, but is still two homers short of the Yankees’ lifetime record, held by Derek Jeter.
Jeter needed 734 post-season plate appearances to set that record for the Yankees, homering every 37 times up. Mantle had 18 in just 273 appearances, which works out to one every fifteen trips. Stanton has hit 18 in only 172 opportunities, meaning he has hit a homer every 9.6 plate appearances, a truly impressive performance.
(For the record, Ruth hit one every 11 appearances in the post-season, Gehrig 15, Judge 16, DiMaggio 26. Reggie hit one every 12 appearances for the Yankees, but only one every 18 overall, including his time with the As and the Angels.)
I don’t want to dwell on negatives, but it was not Aaron Judge’s finest hour. You all saw the crucial error he made in on a routine play in the fifth inning. Guess how many errors he made during the regular season.
None.
CHOKE!
I feel the pain. Back in the 1980s, I dropped a very similar line drive while playing third base in the final game of the Dallas city co-ed softball tournament. I did it in more dramatic fashion. If I had made the catch – a routine play – it would have ended the game right there, with my team as the city champion! The ball was right at my chest like an infielder’s throw to first. I picked the ball up quickly, but the runner beat my throw. CHOKE! I still think about that 40-year-old play frequently, although it took place in a game that I suppose nobody remembers but me. So I can imagine how Judge must feel after having made that game-losing play in front of the entire country on baseball’s largest stage.
(Poor Gerrit Cole gave up NO earned runs of the five scored by the Dodgers that inning.)
I didn’t look up the record, but I wonder whether any previous team has ever won a World Series clincher in which they used eight pitchers. (In a nine-inning game, no less!) That seems unlikely.
Congrats, Dodgers and Freeman!
Freeman probably won the MVP (and the series?) with that dramatic walk off HR in Game 1. Immediately there comparison’s with Gibson’s blast, and although it was a perfect analogy, the similarities were there. The Yankees never fully recovered from that.
I kind of feel bad for Judge….his only error of the year! He was set up to be the hero of the night with the 1st inning HR and that fantastic catch he made earlier in the game.
Cole has only himself to blame…..he have only covered first on that grounder to first, he would have gotten out of the inning unscathed despite the two errors in the inning.
Re: Cole. That is true.
I always love seeing the Boras Corporation’s most famous employee fuck up like that. And in answer to Matt, it’s the pitcher’s play. I pitched in HS and got a royal reeming for having a brief brain fart on a similar play and being slow off the mound even though I did barely get to first on time.
And I may be way off base. I only watched the highlights. But the 1st baseman it seemed had plenty of time to hustle to the bag as well? Seemed he just decided “nah, not worth it.” In Little League drills we would have gotten reamed for that. And this is THE WORLD SERIES.
If I had been playing first, I would have charged the ball, giving me the direction and momentum to step on first. BUT I understand what he was doing. He was in a quandary about how to play the spinny hit, so he stayed back and waited for the expected bad bounce. He clearly expected Cole to cover the bag while Cole expected him to charge the ball.
It’s easy to see the problems after the fact, but it’s not all that simple in real time under game pressure. It was a tricky play. You can’t compare that to Judge’s having missed a play about as difficult as catching a perfect toss from dad. Those two guys simply guessed wrong, while Judge just plain choked.
For a short series, it had 2 absolutely incredible games (1 & 5) and was just drama through and through!
What the Dodgers accomplished this year with all of their pitching injuries was pretty incredible! An amazing finish to an absolutely great season! Go Dodgers!
Too bad it’s hard to respect a team that just buys every available all-star. With the players they buy, it is almost a certainty they will win some. The spending disparity in MLB is why it has a massive problem. It’s always an issue, but whenever a big market team like the Dodgers go crazy, it just seems to be a waste of time to follow.
True of both teams.
It leaves fans in an awkward position. Root for the best teams to win, or root for the small market teams to overcome the odds?
I do hate it when teams like the Yankees and Dodgers just stock up on all-stars, but I hate it far more when a team with an 83-78 record wins the World Series or when a poor team like the 2023 D-Backs wins the pennant after allowing more runs than they scored during the season.
What I want is the impossible dream. I want a small-market team to win the World Series after posting the best record during the season, or close to it.
With that said, the fans want to see the superstars, so I guess a Yankee/Dodger match-up is good for the game (but not every year, I hope!)
From Twitter/X
“The Yankees can still win the World Series if Mike Pence does the right thing!”
Or if Raffensberger can just find the Yankees 12,000 runs.
Bankees vs the Bankees of the West. Giant who cares
That win was for Fernando. BTW, how the fuck did Yankees fuck everything up in the 5th inning? The Dodgers really gave them an ass kicking. Yes, the Yankees are forever known going to be THE GREATEST CHOKERS IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS. Remember what happened in 2004.